Too bad no mention made of the soaring of part time work to near 600K. The largest jump in nearly 3 years. Of the 873K added in the household survey, 66% was part time work. And, BTW, that number when you calculate it exactly is .66666667. Odd number isn't it. Kinda makes you scratch your head.

Anyway, poor reporting by the Economist. I have a 12 issue subscription that I will not be renewing. I'm had high hopes for you guys but you're not doing your job.

Hardly matters to me....what matters is that this 'newspaper' is doing it's readers a disservice by not reporting the news properly. You can check my numbers and if you don't think it's newsworthy you are missing some gray matter. This is not a 'right' or 'left' issue, it's a reporting issue.

You don't find it significant that two thirds of the job growth is temp work. That it is the greatest month to month increase in almost 3 years? Btw, read zero hedge they are reporting the same thing. Yeah go ahead and laugh.....like a moron. And Btw I'm not complaining about a belief system. If you can't discern that from bls statistics you are beyond help.

Yeah.. doesn't matter if the job numbers were scheduled to come out today and that that were 6 months of continuous improvement leading up to this even on Wall Street Journal, Owned by a Conservative none other than, Rupert Murdoch.

Difference is that the WSJ did a better job reporting.... Mentioning the surge in part time work. And calling job growth tepid. Economist reports people finding jobs in 'remarkable numbers.' True if you find part time work remarkable. Good reporting vs. partisan hackery.

Exactly. I am a Democrat and I am continually finding The Economist has slipped into the "not that credible a news source anymore." It started with the one sided global warming reporting I started seeing in The Economist. I have been reading The Economist for 20 years and I can really see the difference now. They have crossed the line from an unbiased source to a bias source, and I won't stop talking about it. WSJ is much better and more believable.

I am currently researching a best deal to resubscribe. They are expensive but you get what you pay for. In the meantime, this for the leftist zombies.....from another good publication, Barron's. Economist take note. This is what good, honest journalism looks like:

But digging down into the BLS release shows that, of the 873,000 jump in household employment, two-thirds of it was the result of a huge increase in "involuntary" part-time workers. Nearly 600,000 of those who found jobs last month got only part-time work when they really wanted -- or needed -- full-time jobs. And not only does part-time work by definition provide fewer hours, they generally also come with lower pay and few benefits. Moreover, half of the part-timers that landed in that category landed there because their hours were cut back, notes Michael T. Lewis, head of the Free Market Inc. economic consultancy.

Thus, while the quantity of jobs that turned up in the BLS household survey was impressive, the quality of those jobs were decidedly substandard.

That's also reflected in the so-called "under-employment" rate, formally called U-6 by the BLS, which adds back the involuntary part-timers and those "marginally attached to the labor force" (folks who aren't actively looking for work but would take a job.) This measure of the job market remained stuck at 14.7% last month despite the outsized drop in the headline unemployment rate.

At a population of 310 million people , even with an historically low population growth rate at an estimated 0.7%, the U.S. population grew by at least 180,000 people in September.

Therefore, even accepting the most optimistic estimate of the U.S. jobs growth of 140,000 jobs added in September, the unemployment rate in the United States must have increased.

Any other conclusion must therefore be fraudulent. Demographics can't explain it, since Baby Boomers are staying in the workforce longer and thus increasing, not decreasing the eligible workforce.

The games being played by the Obama-directed Bureau of Labor statistics are simply criminal. We all know that the labor statistics are arrived at via small sample "survey" questions, and the estimates of part-time employment and labor force participation rates are subjectively made by Obama-directed bureaucrats, so it should come as no surprise whatsoever that the "miracle" dip below 8% was reported today.

Jack Welch had it right when he said, "Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can't debate so change numbers,"

There's always underemployment, in every recession, recovery, and boom. There's always the headline unemployment number, and then the higher one including underemployed or discouraged workers. This is not unique to this president or this time.

And many folks give up looking for jobs because they decide to retire instead. With the baby boomers where they are this is a big reason for the drop in labor force participation. Again, nothing regarding the president.

The workforce is only ~155Million (~50% of US population ). Children, the retired, and stay-at-home mom/dads don't count. Roughly, of the 180,000 population growth, we needed about 90,000 new jobs to keep a stable rate of employment. We got 140,000. Unemployment went down.
But as you've shown to be an obviously brilliant statistician and economist, odds are you're right and its a giant government conspiracy.

This is like a steady state calculation, the number of people entering the workforce and those born are likely to be quite similar. Now the number of people exiting the workforce is likely to be smaller due to death and the effects of growth.

The numbers are concealing the better number of workforce participation and underemployment. Everyone knows the economy is not exploding, the opportunities just aren't everywhere like they once where several years ago and for the prior 30 years.

If you look at the demographics of our declining birth rates, more people are entering working-age than are being born. This would tend to increase the eligible workfore, not reduce it.

On the other end, since the Baby Boomers are remaining longer in the workforce than did previous generations, one again, the workforce should be increasing , not decreasing.

Yet the BLM continues to report decreases in the eligible workforce in order to skew the U3 unemployment rate. Interestingly, this time around they did not play with the number of people in the workforce, but rather counted employed those who worked as much as 1 hour in the past week.

The "dumb" moniker foits anyone who swallows government-issued U3 statistics and believes that it is a true indicator of the employment situation in America.

It is almost as stupid as celebrating the fact that for the first time since inauguration, we now have more people employed (by a few people)than were employed when Obama took office - completely ignoring the obvious fact that the US population has grown my more than 11 milliopn people during that time.

In my experience, 100% of babies believe that they are victims, who believe that they’re entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. They pay no income tax. We will never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

The real point not captured in this article is that U-6 (i.e. those out of work plus those not having looked for 4 weeks) exceeds 14.6%.
FORGET the registered unemployed number...it is a very poor indicator. Besides those who vote still might have enough energy to show up at the ballot box, even though they cannot be bothered looking for a job.
Dean Lewis

Wah, wah, it's such a poor indicator, but you reference an alternative indicator, also published by the BLS (who allegedly "cooks the books") that is more accurate? On whose authority? Just because it's a more pessimistic indictment of the current administration without any context?

Republicans still haven't owned up to Bush, and won't be taken seriously until they articulate policies that differentiate themselves from that debacle. Romney has the exact same people whispering in his ear, nothing has changed.

What a surprise! but wait: the numbers are going to be revised and changed next week. The Democrats have to lie to distrac people of the great impression that Romney left after the debate. All the explanation of the differences of both reports are simply not credible, the numbers were fixed. The problem with the Democrats is that they are so used to lie that in their mainds the lies become reality. But the problem with lying is that the truth always finds its way out and this case, they forgot to fix the numbers in the second report. The question now is: the 4 years 8.2% unemployment is true? or like many believe, the unemployment is 18%?

Really? The republicans are burning now for their lies, however, as the information about falsified voter registrations in Florida as well as other swing states have come into the press. And the responsibility lies with a consulting company with which Mitt Romney has worked. Even if the republicans try to downplay it and distance themselves, they're too close to the company and the situation for anyone to really believe that they had no hand it. Who's lyin' now?

Usually the one who shouts out accusations the loudest is the one trying to hide their own guilt about the very thing they're shouting about. It's called diversion and all American politicians play that game, no matter which party they belong to. I cannot emphasize enough the need for American politics, including supporters of all political parties to grow up and start acting productively rather than throwing mud. All that's going to be left IS mud if we don't do something about it.

And this is exactly the problem with the Right: they genuinely hope the economy does worse pre-election so their candidate has a higher probability of getting the job. You know the Romney camp was incredibly disheartened when a better jobs report was released. There is no reason WHATSOEVER why anyone would be down on the fact the economic numbers have improved....unless of course you're just power-hungry shmucks with poor spelling.

Sir, I recall Msr Bush's "Jobless Recovery" touted in all our Media and papers throughout the EU and Asia. Democrats decried any improvement in "Bush's Economy"...which, BTW, was much better than anything your current president has presided over.

And your Republicans are "disheartened" only by the falsity of you jobs reports. Of the 40 dismal job reports, almost every one of them has been "revised down" less than a week later. One cannot believe any of the statements coming out of your current regime.

Note that these revisions are rarely made news or if they are, they are run off-cycle--equivalent to the NYT's 26th page.

Sir, I recall Msr Bush's "Jobless Recovery" touted in all our Media and papers throughout the EU and Asia. Democrats decried any improvement in "Bush's Economy"...which, BTW, was much better than anything your current president has presided over.

And your Republicans are "disheartened" only by the falsity of you jobs reports. Of the 40 dismal job reports, almost every one of them has been "revised down" less than a week later. One cannot believe any of the statements coming out of your current regime.

Note that these revisions are rarely made news or if they are, they are run off-cycle--equivalent to the NYT's 26th page.

In there defense, I think any political party would be upset if there opponents got a boost in the economy unemployment rate during a heated election. It's foolish to think that the democrats wouldn't try to down play this same jobs report if a republican was in office. Both sides are in the wrong for trying to move their agenda over the national well-being.

I agree, Democrats would feel the same way if the other way around, and that the general nature of our political system places power-seeking far above genuine interest in the betterment of the country. To Esteban, I would agree that the numbers under Obama are considerably worse than the numbers under President Bush, as is the Right's narrative. But what you and your cohorts seem to miss is the trend. Bush came in on a high note, that is, immediately following one of the highest job-generating regimes in U.S. history, as well as being given an economic surplus, and then finished with every economic indicator pointing down. Obama was sent into office on the lowest note possible and there's been only improvements. As Clinton noted, it's a snappy argument: we sucked, and you didn't clean it up fast enough, so send us back in! Snappy indeed, but utterly senseless to anyone paying attention. Sir.

You make a good point, both Republicans and Democrats are power hungry.

Then you do something completely stupid: you state the falsity of jobs reports.

Is there no one part of this conversation that realizes that the vast majority of the people who work in the BLS do not affiliate themselves with any current administration. They are working professionals, technocrats if you will, who are on neither political side (they likely have political views and vote, but that is a private affair).

By the way, where are you from? "touted in all our media papers throughout the EU and Asia", as if to say what? That half the world's media....

You are the one who is being naive, making gross generalizations and exaggerations.

Downward revisions simply occur because taking a survey of all the nation's unemployed is not...umm easy. You would have no idea what to do, yet you can sit there and criticize those who perform such difficult tasks.

Sure, government employees are dependent upon taxes. Same with teachers. Why does this make them any less professional? There is a gaping hole in your logic. Those taxes just the same pay for many of your bridges, your system of law, your security, your education, and many other things which without you would never be able to run a modern business.

Again, your point about President Obama is against the facts. Since he has been in office, government jobs have been decreasing while sector employment is up. On the other hand Governor Romney wants to increase the defense budget by 2 trillion. See, the distinction is not so clear.

I can tell from your lack of respect and your lack of willingness to respond to most of the points I made that you are probably some poorly informed citizen of an industrialized nation who gives more credit to himself than deserved and neglects the massive role the state has always played in the development of every country (yes things lik the invention of the internet and putting a man on the moon, which I would say match up considerably with the achievements of the private sector, iPads and derivative securities).

Do not pretend the world can be so easily conceptualized into the idea of a hostile state; your ignorance is showing.

Sir, downward revisions--1 week later--occur because the initial numbers grab headlines; the revisions are always on the back page. You are more than naive, you are now willfully blind.

I have two of my sons who are American citizens and Federal Gov't employees (CIA and USMC). Their organizations and positions are chartered by your Constitution and represent an enumerated power relegated to the Federal Gov't. That is, they are legitimate and any tax funds use to pay them are likewise.

But I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that portion of your Constitution that empowers all those other government agencies, can you? (Depts of Education, Energy, etc). The Dept of Education was well represented by the teacher strike in Chicago. Said teachers depend upon the Dept of Education for their continued existence; professionals? Cut them lose, you have a heavy enough load upon the taxpayers.

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." --Thomas Jefferson

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." --Thomas Jefferson

Sir, if a statist like yourself is dependent upon the government then it is logical that you will vote accordingly. Where does the money come from? Taxpayers, of course.

Internet? Moon shots? Yes, there are legitimate "wins" sponsored by government, but equating that increasing the number of people on welfare? Spurious examples abound and illogical comparisons multiply. Truly you have been duped. I weep for your country.

You are truly a funny character. Surely your sons are legitimate characters, but no one else. Well the first line of the enumerated powers, while mentioning defense, also states the federal government shall provide for the nations general welfare.

It is my belief that your sons are legitimate uses of tax dollars, just as are the teachers and professional in the department of energy. Certainly we can cut waste in any of these areas. For example, I don't like my tax dollars going to CIA torture interrogations or Guantanamo Bay. But I think the DOE and DOE fit nicely into my interpretation of welfare.

The Constitution can easily be interpreted to your liking, but this is a democracy, and it is for the people to decide how they wish to interpret it. Thomas Jefferson also owned slaves. He was far from a perfect character, and I don't believe that just because he says something it is gold.

For your info, I have never been dependent on government, except yes of course in their provision of education, infrastructure, and the rule of law. That I am grateful for, since it has made the United States one of the most prosperous countries on Earth.

You can weep for my country, and it has many problems, but not nearly as many as other places in the world. Your sympathy is misguided and your ideology unfounded in fact.

Yay! A 3/10 of 1% drop in unemployment! Who cares if Obama cooked the books? It's the first positive sign of life in 43 months and amazingly just a few weeks before election. Of course, he had to rewrite history in July and August to get there. But he's never been one to let his many failures discourage him. Even the great debater himself has to realize that four more years of his naive economic dba social policies will send unemployment again soaring more quickly than you can mutter "disengaged." But Obama give up the jet and the house for a nation's economic health? Never. Not when you can make up your own facts in order to keep them.

I understand the rhetorical device of synecdoche escapes many people. But I have found it's usually more severe in persons of a liberal bent. However, I now have to expand my study to include liberals with two Christian names. Thanks for the clue.

I wonder why the BLS relies on these surveys and statistical methods to count unemployment. Wouldn't it be simpler to get actual numbers from the states of unemployment insurance beneficiaries and then supplement that with surveys/statistics to count people who's benefits expired and people who voluntarily left jobs/finished school (but are still actively looking)? It seems like this would present not only more accurate numbers, but also reflect actual unemployment. When I had been laid off from my full time job, I still considered myself to be "unemployed" and still collected unemployment benefits even though I waited tables part time. If I had been included in the household survey, I would have been considered employed. And wrt the enterprise survey, it counts the number of jobs, but I don't see how it counts the number of unemployed. A company may lay off a person in one department, and hire someone who was already employed elsewhere in a new position in a totally different capacity. What if a company laid off a lawyer making $200k/year but hired an additional secretary (who came from another firm) making $40K/year? The lawyer is still unemployed, and secretary isn't moving from unemployed to employed.

Methodologies and definitions concerning employment statistics are international standards. Every country tries to do things the same way in order to facilitate cross-country comparison. Alternative indicators do also exists alongside the standardized one. In Poland, for instance, the "headline" unemployment rate is derived from unemployment registrations. It's typically 2% higher than the rate you'll find at Eurostat.

The problem with relying on official records is that people cheat. Some will collect unemployment benefits while getting paid under the table. So you end up overstating the level of unemployment. Since people's behaviors are affected by policy changes (e.g. tougher enforcement), you would also introduce variability into your time series unrelated to the actual employment situation. The survey method give you data that's more stable.

I didn't lie. I don't know if it works this way in all states, but in my state you are able to work up to 30 hours per week and still collect unemployment benefits, which are pro-rated each week by how much you earned. You report your earnings each week on your filing, and if you lie, you can be prosecuted.

Thank you for the explanation. I do wonder if it matters if someone is getting paid under the table though. Let me explain: in order to collect benefits at all, a person has to have lost a job. So that person still lost a legitimate job and hasn't gotten another legitimate job yet. It still shows that companies are laying people off and not hiring.

I just found it interesting to point how similar your argument was to the one Mitt Romney used to his supporters. By the way, when you say that low-income people can't have different political preferences, you use the worst kind of determinism to support your view.

There are videos showing Romney taking credit for Obamacare(Yes the same thing that he vehemently opposses atleast before the debate), Killing Osama bin Laden and apparently even the Civil Rights movement.

The discrepancy between the household and establishment data probably has something to do with the new work permit program for illegal immigrants. The program started accepting applications in mid-August. That would have created a one-time jump in the respond-rate in the household survey in September. Previously, if a census bureau worker asks an illegal immigrant whether he is working, there's pretty good chance that he'll answer in the negative even when he does have a job. Now, if this same immigrant has filed an application at the DHS, he'll likely choose to answer that he is working when inquired.

Is that the Jack Welch who spuriously increased GE's valuation by making it into a risky bank? The bank that is still a zombie bank, depressing GE's share price for years to come? Did he ever give back the bonuses he earned by making GE into a risk bomb? Maybe he should lay off twitter and get back to writing apology letters to GE shareholders.

“I don’t like these numbers so they must be false” is denial and delusion. Electoral politics should be a little bit more reality based than professional wrestling. When errors are symmetrically distributed, it is hard to argue systemic bias. Is the BLS any more likely to throw away credibility, i.e., its reason to exist, than a polling firm sacrifice it's future business by intentionally producing bad predictions? Tin foil sales must be up.

What I find amusing is that the Republicans have been running on a number that's above 8% for the entire campaign, never questioning its veracity. First time it drops below that number, they attempt to dismiss and debunk it. No one thinks the numbers suddenly improved. This is another point on the long-term graph. When Obama tanked in the debate, his most loyal supporters, from John Stewart to James Carville all called him out on it and said he stunk. When bad things happen to Republicans (like certain video tapes or ill-advised foreign policy comments, or....well, it's a long list), they immediately blame it on a liberal press or some such nonsense. That's because in their white bread, gated-community world they are never wrong. That's why they get us into wars over WMD that don't exist and pass self-serving tax plans that don't work.

Actually I can come up with a myriad of examples showing your are lying. The Republicans are highly critical of their own kind. Liberals, on the other hand, blindly support their leader. I can cite many peer reviewed journal articles documenting this behavior, but I'm afraid I have no time as I must get on to refuting all the other liberal propaganda that litters the internets.

Your opinion is devoid of any facts. You say that Obama's loyal supporters call him out on him tanking the debate. I will refer you to his chief of spin Stephanie Cutter blaming it on Romney and Jim Lehrer. Also, Al Gore blames it on altitude. HMMM! You are wrong! Additionally, Republicans have a historical tendency to drop their idiots such as Delay, Atkin, and Sanford; whereas, the sad democrats keep criminals such around and prop them up. Such as Holder, Rangel, Soros, Maxi Waters etc…. For anyone who wants to argue that there is not a liberal press. Then please answer how when GWBush was president gas prices went over $2 a gallon and there was a story everyday blaming Bush. Now that osucko is president it has been over $3 a gallon for several years and I cannot remember 1 story about it. In addition, Cindy Sheehan and the "supposed" anti-war movement were on the news almost every day. Now you never see a story about it, even though Ms. Sheehan is still protesting (she is a true patriot). Let's see how many stories in the news about the fact GDP has gone down the last 2 years or that the U-6 employment rate is at 14.7%? I am sure you are right though there is no liberal bias. Oh wait, how about the fact the press is all but ignoring that the Osucko administration has lied about the Benghazi attacks being spontaneous? RPG and heavy machine guns are more prevalent in North Africa than most places, but I doubt if they bring them to "spontaneous protests".

Hey, I'm liberal and I voted for a republican governer last election! You must be lying too! If the republicans weren't saying such embarassing things this fall, I might have voted for them too in this election. But perhaps I'm not self critical enough, being a liberal.

If labor force participation were at the same rate that it was at the start of Obama's term, the unemployment rate would be at ~11%. It has yet to show any signs of recovery (as alluded to in the article when they stated the total employment rate).

Liked the note at the end of the story. I think the news here is that this came out after Romney had a strong showing in the presidential debate.

So the news cycle got disrupted essentially. I thought some had forecasts on the pessimistic side too? It is likely that Romney will get cheated from enjoying a week's worth of positive attention that he deserves.

Although the run up to the next debate will probably lead to all sorts of analysis of the last one, with talking head commentary positive towards his win.

Otherwise, just curious, why is this unremarkable: "Non-farm payroll employment rose by 114,000, an unremarkable number in itself "

I continue to be surprised the US economy is doing as well as it is. In a time when households are paying down debt, we seem to be consuming enough to justify continued expansion. I wonder how much is due to stability rather than growth, that employers held off adding jobs, fearing the future, and have been filling positions as the economy has maintained its course.